The American Dream in The X-Files: Nisei, 731, Revelations, War of the Coprophages, Syzygy

The introduction to this series of posts about the depiction and criticism of the American dream in The X-Files may be found here: https://culttvblog.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-american-dream-in-x-files.html?m=1

3x09 Nisei and 3x10 731 (Core Mythology)

These two series mythology episodes were intended to be a single Monster of the Week episode, based on the atrocities of the famous Unit 731 run by the Japanese in occupied China from 1937 to 1945. The experiments on humans were just as cruel as the experiments the Nazis were carrying out in Europe and of course you know the reason it's appearing on this show is that the US paid the scientists involved for their research and paid them stipends. We're back in similar territory to Operation Paperclip.  As depicted here the experiments are adapted for the series mythology - an alienification if you like - to involve alien autopsies. Although the commentary on these episodes has tended to be that they depict the erosion of public confidence in scientists because of repeated cases of them going dramatically off the rails, but given that all of the experimentation referred to in the show has been at least in part supported by the US government, the criticism is as much of the US. This automatically erodes the rights and respect for human life you would expect the land of the free to have, and so instantly eats away at the American dream.

If you're not feeling discouraged enough, 731 then adds a kicker to this, by its depiction of the sufferers with Hanson's disease/leprosy. You may say of course that up until after the second world war it wasn't at all unusual for lepers to be quarantined for life in  all sorts of places. However, remember the way The X-Files blends real history with its fictional version. Here the fictional version that 'lepers' are rounded up and shot because they are alien-human hybrids, comes in an episode directly referencing Unit 731. The specific incident of real history which is borrowed here is that while obviously Unit 731 didn't have many survivors from its experiments, the few that were left when World War 2 ended were rounded up and shot, the remaining scientists were sworn to secrecy and provided with suicide pills, and the buildings of Unit 731 rased to the ground. It was only after this the USA offered the director a deal where they wouldn't prosecute him for crimes against humanity if he gave them the secrets of his research so that they wouldn't fall into Soviet hands. 

Even with its alienification of this real history, the show twists the knife in the wound of the USA's dealings with war criminals, evil human experimentation, and its attempts to defend the dream against all comers.

Is it really a dream if it's built on crimes against humanity?

There is another, more subtle, kicker here, in the use of a leper colony to stand in for Unit 731, which is that an earlier treatment for Hansen's disease was discovered by Alice Ball (1892 - 1916). Of course you know where this is going: it was discovered in the USA using ethical experimentation, by an African American woman, and stolen after her death by a white male doctor who put his own name to it. This association may not have been intended by the show's makers at all, but setting a show in the USA tends to reflect on the American dream in all sorts of ways, and you might as well add the treatment of African Americans into the references to dealings with human vivisectionists.

It may seem that the alien involvement in the plot may soften it by making it seem less real, however the show then even takes that possibility away by leaving the viewer to decide whether what is on the train is actually alien, etc. However it is clearly of interest to the government or people closely connected to the government because we see Cancer Man having the doctor's notes translated. 

3x11 Revelations (Monster of the Week)

The only apparent reference to the American dream in this episode is to the combination of freedom of religion combined with that other part of the dream, capitalism, which can allow things like mega churches and so many fake stigmatics that they can be killed in multiples of eleven.

3x12 War of the Coprophages (Monster of the Week)

No apparent reference to the American dream.

3x13 Syzygy (Monster of the Week)

Syzygy points to several contradictions in the American dream - in fact I think this is the best way of understanding this relatively-unpopular episode. The first one is the obvious one that that community thinking a Satanic cult is operating in its midst is riddled all the way through with Christianity like the writing through Blackpool rock. Now you may say that part of the American dream is that there should be freedom of religion, but that wasn't the way it always was, and (I stand to be corrected on this) as far as I know was only formulated in ths constitution of 1789. In fact previous to this, different States even had established churches - just like in England! I keep returning to the theme of the American dream changing over time, and religion is definitely one of the areas it has most changed.

Syzygy also points to (and in the process re-enacts and warns against) the history of killing people perceived as 'witches' in the US as a result of mass hysteria. It's like this episode is actually acting out the sort of perceptions you would have come across in Salem in 1692 and 1693, tranposed to contemporary society. In fact I wonder whether one of the reasons this episode has tended to be fairly unpopular is that it is frankly uncomfortable viewing because of the reminder of how humans can get things terribly wrong and commit atrocities as a result.

You may of course say that the US was very far from being the only place in history to suffer from a combination of witchcraft fantasy and religious hysteria causing people to see 'Satan' everywhere, and of course you'd be right. But in the context of the American dream the Salem witch trials had a particular role in the development of the current perception of the dream and I can't put it better than this:

'More than once it has been said, too, that the Salem witchcraft was the rock on which the theocracy shattered.' (George Lincoln Burr: Narratives of the Witchcraft Cases 1648-1706 (Original Narratives of Early American History). Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1914, p. 197, note 1.)

I would therefore argue that it was the sort of Satanic hysteria we see in this episode that caused the separation of church and state which is so characteristic of the American dream, and I think that's about as entwined in the dream as you can get. I will therefore include this episode among my list of ones with significan content related to the dream.

As I go through these posts I am going to keep a tally of how many episodes of Core Mythology and Monster of the Week types have significant content making the American dream in effect part of the plot rather than the omnipresent setting, and so far we have 

Core Mythology: 18 (7 with signifcant content relating to the American dream: Deep Throat, Fallen Angel, E.B.E., Little Green Men, Anasazi, The Blessing Way and Paperclip.)

Monster of the Week: 44 (9 with significant content relating to the American dream: Eve, Beyond the Sea, Young at Heart, Miracle Man, Shapes, Blood, Sleepless, Fresh Bones, and Syzygy.)

As always, I'm totally unequipped to do this so if I've missed anything corrections are very welcome in the comments.